Stylos is the blog of Jeff Riddle, a Reformed Baptist Pastor in North Garden, Virginia. The title "Stylos" is the Greek word for pillar. In 1 Timothy 3:15 Paul urges his readers to consider "how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar (stylos) and ground of the truth."

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Book Review: C. H. Pappas, "In Defense of the Authenticity of 1 John 5:7"

One of the results of the current overwhelming dominance, one
might even say tyranny, of the modern critical Greek text of the New Testament over
the minds of scholars, even in conservative evangelical and Reformed circles,
has been the rarity of works which attempt to defend disputed traditional
texts. Admittedly, among the most
disputed and the most difficult for traditionalists to defend is the so-called Comma Johanneum (CJ) or the “three
heavenly witnesses” passage found in the second half of 1 John 5:7. Many modern translations simply omit the
verse’s second half without even adding a footnote to explain its absence (see
the ESV)! Into such a context comes a
rare volume, C. H. Pappas’ contemporary effort to defend the traditional
reading of 1 John 5:7.

Pappas writes as a pastor-theologian. He has served for over thirty years as
minister at Collins Road Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida. His discussion is not pitched at a technical
but at a popular level: “It is not
written for the scholar but for the people who sit in the pews” (p. xxii). Though it is clear that he prefers the KJV and
advocates for it as an English translation, his defense of the CJ is not that
of a KJV-Onlyist in that he defends the passage on the basis of the Greek text.

Here is a summary of some of Pappas’ arguments for the CJ on
external, internal, as well as theological grounds:

1. The CJ is
admittedly not found in the largest number of Greek manuscripts nor is it in the
earliest manuscripts, but it is found in at least nine late Greek manuscripts.

2. The CJ is found in Old
Latin manuscripts (which Pappas associates with the Waldensians), which can be
dated very early and demonstrate its antiquity.

3. The CJ was known and cited by several early
Church Fathers, most notably by Cyprian, Tertullian, Augustine, and Priscilian
(in the Liber Apolegeticus). Pappas defends the latter, in particular,
from the charge of being a heretical source (see pp. 15-16).

4. The CJ was
suppressed in the Eastern church and, therefore, in many of the early Greek
manuscripts due to the Arian controversy.

5. The CJ eventually came
to be accepted and acknowledged as part of the legitimate text of Scripture by
the universal, faithful church and was included in the traditional printed
texts of the Greek NT and in the vernacular translations which emerged from the
Protestant Reformation.

6. In modern times, the
CJ only came to be widely challenged and removed from the Greek text of the NT
and from translations after the work of Westcott and Hort and the revision
committee (which included a Unitarian influence) in 1881.

7. The CJ is even
accepted by the modern Greek Orthodox churches as part of the legitimate text
of Scripture.

8. The CJ can be
defended on internal grounds. The
masculine gender usage in 1 John 5:8 only makes sense grammatically if the
traditional text of 1 John 5:7 is original.

9. The appearance of
the CJ as a marginal note in some Greek manuscripts can be just as plausibly
explained as an attempt to correct a copying error of omission, rather than as
an attempt to insert something that was not in the original.

10. If the CJ was not
original and it was inserted into the text by pious but misguided scribes who
wanted to strengthen their argument for the Trinity, we would expect to find
evidence of both Arians and orthodox Christians who would most certainly have
protested against such an insertion.
There is no record of any such protests.

11. The omission of 1
John 5:7 in the modern era came as the result of the application of the modern
historical-critical method to Biblical studies and to the development of source
and form criticism. This modern method
is not compatible with the traditional view of the divine preservation of
Scripture.

Though firm in his defense of the CJ and clear in his
rejection of the modern critical text, Pappas largely avoids ad hominem attacks and uncharitable
outbursts. There are, however, still a
few statements like this one: “Enough of
the so-called early manuscripts! They
survived only because they were not used.
They were not used because they were heretical! Burn them!” (p. 79). On the other hand, at the book’s conclusion
he urges his readers who reject modern translations not to do outrageous stunts
like burning modern translations: “This
is utterly foolish” (p. 97).

One might wish that some of Pappas’ arguments had been
more clearly and ably exposited.The
author is primarily dependent on a limited number of secondary sources.His arguments are often repetitive.There are a number of historical
simplifications, overstatements, unsubstantiated claims, and outright errors. For example, Pappas several times asserts that
the CJ had not been at all challenged in the modern era until Westcott and Hort
in 1881 (e.g., “Interestingly enough, it was not until 1881 that the Comma was
ever questioned” [p. 17]).In fact, the
CJ was challenged by intellectuals as diverse as Isaac Newton [see An Historical Account of Two Notable
Corruptions of Scripture In A Letter To A Friend by Sir Isaac Newton
(London:John Green, 1841)] and Edward
Gibbon [George Travis, Letters to Edward
Gibbon, Esq. Author of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
Third Edition (London, 1794)] in the eighteenth century not to mention by
Biblical scholars of that era.The
first published Greek NT to challenge the Textus
Receptus (including the CJ) was not Westcott and Hort’s in 1881 but Karl
Lachman’s in 1831.

Despite the book’s shortcomings on a scholarly level, there
remains significant merit in thoughtful examination of many of the issues which
Pappas raises and pondering of the questions he poses relating to the modern
omission of 1 John 5:7 from the text of Scripture. The best challenges are, in fact, the
theological ones, like this one:

The issue before us is obvious: it is not a matter of a preference for a
translation. The issue is a battle for
the Bible! If one text can be removed
from the Scripture, who is to say that another shall not be removed? (p. 85).

The book is particularly welcome given that there are so few
voices in our day who are asking these questions, raising these issues, and
offering any challenge against the dominance, one might even say tyranny, of
the modern critical text.

6 comments:

I appreciate popular books in defense of the TR, or specifically, TR's passages like 1 John 5.7. I think Pappas' book is good, but I would like to see a more detailed work, like those books of the past that Charles Foster and Frederick Nolan wrote in the XIX century. In my opinion one of the good historical arguments in favor of the Comma was proposed by Hills in KJV Defended. Is very interesting to note that in the First Church council which the church faced the Arius' doctrine, even the orthodox didn't feel good with the definition "una essentia, tres personae" because sounded too much "sabellianism".

I agree that it would be nice if someone could write a reasoned and better defense of the CJ than Pappas was able to do, one that is more conversant with scholarship, like Nicholas Lunn's recent defense of the ending of Mark. Maybe you could take that on???

Sigh. It is as if the observations I have pointed out about the transposition in the Latin text of I John 5:5-7 have been utterly ignored.

<< It is found in at least nine late Greek manuscripts. >>

If one counts MSS in which someone has written it in the margin, and MSS based on printed editions of the Greek TR.

<< The CJ is found in Old Latin manuscripts (which Pappas associates with the Waldensians), which can be dated very early and demonstrate its antiquity. >>

Does anyone deny that an African form of the Old Latin included the CJ in one form or another? Metzger affirmed that it was used by Priscillian, does he not?

<< The CJ was known and cited by several early Church Fathers, most notably by Cyprian, Tertullian, Augustine, and Priscilian (in the Liber Apolegeticus). >>

Cyprian? No. Tertullian? No. Neither one cites the CJ. Nor have I verified any use of the CJ in the writings of Augustine; perhaps Pappas categorizes some contemporary work under Augustine's name? At least we agree that Priscillian used the CJ -- but take a close look at the text of the CJ that Priscillian used, please.

<< The CJ was suppressed in the Eastern church and, therefore, in many of the early Greek manuscripts due to the Arian controversy. >>

Does Pappas offer evidence for this, or it this assertion itself used as an explanation for the absence of the CJ in so many Greek MSS?

<< The CJ eventually came to be accepted and acknowledged as part of the legitimate text of Scripture by the universal, faithful church >>

By whose definition? When and where? This is propaganda, not legitimate research.

<< In modern times, the CJ only came to be widely challenged and removed from the Greek text of the NT and from translations after the work of Westcott and Hort >>

Not true.

<< The CJ is even accepted by the modern Greek Orthodox churches as part of the legitimate text of Scripture. >>

If their judgment is meaningfui, why not accept the apocrypha while you're at it, and the text of the Septuagint as the default OT text? Surely what ought to matter is whether John wrote it or not, not whether an orthodox editor accepted it or not. Plus, as Maurice Robinson has pointed out, the formatting of the CJ in the Antoniades compilation indicates that the editor(s) had some doubt about how the CJ should be treated.

<< The masculine gender usage in 1 John 5:8 only makes sense grammatically if the traditional text of 1 John 5:7 is original. >>

<< The appearance of the CJ as a marginal note in some Greek manuscripts can be just as plausibly explained as an attempt to correct a copying error of omission, rather than as an attempt to insert something that was not in the original. >>

Of course, but an attempt by whom, and when? By someone copying the CJ from a printed edition from the 1500s?

<< If the CJ was not original and it was inserted into the text by pious but misguided scribes who wanted to strengthen their argument for the Trinity, we would expect to find evidence of both Arians and orthodox Christians who would most certainly have protested against such an insertion. >>

An untestable theory which depends on the assumption that the CJ gained equal popularity everywhere at the same rate.

<< The omission of 1 John 5:7 in the modern era came as the result of the application of the modern historical-critical method to Biblical studies and to the development of source and form criticism. >>

Rather, the non-inclusion of the CJ was in Erasmus' first edition, and the inclusion of the CJ was the side-effect of his statement that if he had possessed a single Greek MS that had the phrase, he would have included it. It was not the historical-critical method, nor source criticism, nor form criticism, that caused such a plethora of manuscripts to not include the CJ.

<< "Enough of the so-called early manuscripts! They survived only because they were not used. They were not used because they were heretical! Burn them!” (p. 79). >>

Yeah, um, that's crazy. It's not just the Alexandrian line of MSS that lacks the CJ; it's multiple text-streams. The CJ is manifestly a feature of the African Old Latin that later spread into the Vulgate tradition.

<< For example, Pappas several times asserts that the CJ had not been at all challenged in the modern era until Westcott and Hort in 1881 (e.g., “Interestingly enough, it was not until 1881 that the Comma was ever questioned” [p. 17]). >>

Indeed that implies that his research was very shallow indeed.

<< "If one text can be removed from the Scripture, who is to say that another shall not be removed? (p. 85)." >>

By the same token, if one cat-hair can be removed from my breakfast-plate, who is to say that the eggs and bacon shall not be removed? Let's keep that cat-hair there, therefore, and add it to the recipe, and insist that it has always been part of the recipe, and accuse of tyranny, belligerence, and heresy those who advocate its removal on the frivolous grounds that its external support is lousy and the internal evidence shows that it originated as an interpretation of a transposed Latin text of the remainder of the passage.

I would like to see more than a "no" when arguing against Cyprian. It is impossible that he is quoting verse 8. "These 3 are one" requires an antecedent. Cyprian supplies a paraphrased version of the heavenly witnesses, even claiming, "it is written." I don't know how anti-comma theologians can arrive at anything other than that Cyprian is referring to/quoting the comma.